{{Short description|British polar explorer (1889–1979)}} {{EngvarB|date=July 2016}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2016}} {{Infobox person | name = Lionel Greenstreet | image = LionelGreenstreet.png | caption = Lionel Greenstreet, taken on board ''Endurance'' by [[Frank Hurley]] | birth_date = 20 March 1889 | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|1979|1|13|1889|3|28|df=y}} | death_place = | death_cause = | education = | occupation = Sailor<br/>[[Marine insurance]] | spouse = {{plainlist| * Millie Baddeley Muir * Audrey Day }} | parents = }} '''Lionel Greenstreet''' (20 March 1889 – 13 January 1979) was the [[Chief mate|first officer]] of the ''[[Endurance (1912 ship)|Endurance]]'' and a member of the [[Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition]] of 1914–1917, for which he was awarded the [[Polar Medal]]. When he died on 13 January 1979, he was the last survivor of the [[Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition#Expedition|Weddell Sea party]] within the expedition.
==Biography== Greenstreet was born into a family of officers in the [[merchant navy]] of the British Empire; his father Herbert Edward Greenstreet had been granted captain's papers by the [[New Zealand Shipping Company]]. At age 15, Greenstreet became a [[sea cadet]], never returning to school. He gained his [[Master mariner|Master's certificate]] in 1911. As a young ship's officer, he wrote to the Captain of the ''Endurance'', [[Frank Worsley]] in 1914, asking to be considered for a berth. His request arrived just as the ship's named First Officer had thrown up his papers to accept service in [[World War I]], which had just broken out. Greenstreet was told to report to the ''Endurance'' in [[Plymouth Sound]] for an interview; and upon arrival, after brief inspection by Worsley he was abruptly told that the position of First Officer was his and that he had twenty-four hours to prepare for the departure of the vessel to the [[Southern Ocean]]. The fledgling ship's officer recalled that after considerable effort he had settled his affairs and reported aboard the ship, which then sailed 30 minutes after his arrival.<ref name="Coolantarctica">{{cite web |url=http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/History/biography/greenstreet_lionel.htm |title=Lionel Greenstreet (1889–1979) – Biographical notes |work=coolantactica.com |access-date=19 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814103824/http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/History/biography/greenstreet_lionel.htm |archive-date=14 August 2007 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
The expedition's overall commander was the explorer [[Ernest Shackleton]], and the goal of the ''Endurance'' was [[Vahsel Bay]] on the coast of Antarctica, from which Shackleton and the shore party hoped to cross the icy continent by [[dogsled]]; but on 18 January 1915, a few miles short of this destination, the ship was beset by ice and frozen into heavy pack from which she would not emerge.<ref>Shackleton, p. 32.</ref> Greenstreet's duties changed with the new status of his ship; he kept deck watches in an attempt to find a lead of open water through which the ship could extricate itself,<ref>Shackleton, p. 78.</ref> and joined a crew assigned to work below-decks in a futile attempt to stop the leaks that the ice was beginning to punch through the ship's hull.<ref>Shackleton, pp. 79–80.</ref> Despite the work of Greenstreet and his seamen and fellow ship's officers, Shackleton was forced to issue the order to abandon ship on 27 October.<ref>Shackleton, p. 83.</ref> The expedition's 28 members and ship's company had to camp together as castaways on the frozen surface of the [[Weddell Sea]].<ref>Shackleton, pp. 83–84.</ref>
===Castaway=== After the ''Endurance'' was abandoned, Greenstreet's duties again changed. He was given brief command of a team of [[sled dog]]s,<ref>Shackleton, p. 90.</ref> and helped to hunt for fresh meat to supplement the castaways' inadequate supply of food. Shackleton later recalled with gratitude how Greenstreet and his hunting partner, [[Alexander Macklin]], had killed and brought in a [[Weddell seal]] weighing 800 pounds.<ref>Shackleton, p. 115.</ref>
At a slightly later stage of their self-rescue, after the icy campsite of the men of the ''Endurance'' had drifted northward into warmer water, the change in water temperature caused their refuge to melt and on 9 April 1916 they were forced to climb aboard the open boats that they had salvaged from their former vessel.<ref>Shackleton, pp. 133–34.</ref> Shackleton and his men had salvaged three lifeboats, and Greenstreet was the fourth-ranking member of the expedition. He accompanied his captain, Frank Worsley, in the ''[[Dudley Docker]]'' during the eight-day ordeal that marked the progress of the open-boat flotilla to a new and more secure campsite on [[Elephant Island]] in the archipelago of the [[South Shetlands]].<ref>Worsley, p. 37.</ref>
Greenstreet, although characterised by Worsley as "a fine seaman",<ref>Worsley, p. 58.</ref> was not chosen to accompany the six-man party that set out from Elephant Island to [[South Georgia Island]]. Instead the former first officer was detailed to a two-man party, working with [[William Lincoln Bakewell|William Bakewell]], to alter bits and scraps of salvaged ship's [[canvas]] into a jury-rigged canvas [[deck (ship)|deck]] to enable the sole remaining sail-worthy lifeboat of the ship's company, the ''[[Voyage of the James Caird|James Caird]]'', to navigate in the open sea. Worsley, whose life would depend upon the success of this work,<ref>Worsley, p. 98.</ref> describes it as follows:
<blockquote>Frozen like a board and caked with ice, the canvas was sewn, in painful circumstances, by two cheery optimists – Greenstreet, Chief Officer of the ''Endurance'', and Bakewell, a Canadian [sic] AB. The only way they could do it was by holding the frozen canvas in the blubber fire till it thawed, often burning their fingers, while the oily smoke got in their eyes and noses, half-blinding and choking them. Then they sewed, often getting frostbitten and having to use great care that the difficult sewing with cold, brittle sail needles did not break all of our now scanty supply. All the time, while repeating the unpleasant task of thawing a length, and sewing it, 'Horace' [Greenstreet] was irrepressibly cracking his sailor jokes and Bakewell replying.<ref>Worsley, pp. 97–98.</ref></blockquote> The sails hoisted, Shackleton, Worsley and the ''James Caird'' set out into the Southern Ocean. Greenstreet and his 21 fellow castaways remained encamped on Elephant Island, and were rescued on 30 August 1916.
===Later life and character=== [[File:Lieut Lionel Greenstreet, 27 Jan 1917 (16939526984).jpg|thumb|Lt Greenstreet, photographed by [[David Knights-Whittome]] in 1917]] After the end of the expedition and with World War I continuing, Greenstreet was commissioned as a [[second lieutenant]] in the Inland Water Transport arm of the [[Royal Engineers]] in 1917,<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29965|supp=y| date=27 February 1917|page=2102}}</ref> serving in supply barges on the [[Tigris]] in British-occupied [[Mesopotamia]].<ref>Shackleton, p. 375.</ref> He married Millie Baddeley Muir in 1917. After the war, Greenstreet chose shore life, working in [[marine insurance]].
He saw active service in [[World War II]] as an officer in the [[Royal Naval Reserve]].<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=29965| date=6 August 1940|page=4808}}</ref> Greenstreet left command of [[Admiralty tug]] ''Freebooter'' in January 1942 to become [[rescue tug]] equipment officer in charge of the US shipbuilding programme of rescue tugs for the Admiralty under [[lend-lease]].
After the war, he resumed insurance work prior to retirement.<ref name="Coolantarctica"/> His wife Millie died in 1955 and he married Audrey Day.
Worsley, who had chosen Greenstreet on very short notice to join the fateful expedition, repeatedly paid tribute to him in his memoirs. During the first open-boat journey, "Greenstreet was splendid, never losing hope and always ready to crack some appalling sailor-joke."<ref>Worsley, pp. 62–63.</ref> On Elephant Island Worsley's last sight of Greenstreet prior to the Southern Ocean trip was his former First Officer, "cheerfully profane as ever", helping to bag stones to be loaded onto the ''James Caird'' as ballast.<ref>Worsley, p. 100</ref>
== Notes== {{Reflist|30em}}
== Sources== *{{cite book |title=South: The Endurance Expedition |url=https://archive.org/details/southenduranceex00shac |url-access=registration |last=Shackleton |first=Ernest |orig-year=1919|year=1999 |publisher=Signet/[[New American Library]] |location=New York City |isbn=9780451198808 }} *{{cite book |title=Shackleton's Boat Journey |last=Worsley |first=F.A. |year=1977 |publisher=[[W.W. Norton & Co.]] |location=New York City |isbn=0-393-08759-X |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/shackletonsboatj00wors }}
{{Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition}} {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenstreet, Lionel}} [[Category:1889 births]] [[Category:1979 deaths]] [[Category:Personnel of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition]] [[Category:Recipients of the Polar Medal]] [[Category:Royal Engineers officers]] [[Category:Royal Naval Reserve personnel]]